


Sweetheart (Good Enough to Eat)

by Delphi



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Candy, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Crushes, Fire, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:19:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Engie is a big ol’ marshmallow, and Pyro wants to toast him and eat his gooey insides. It’s only kind of a metaphor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweetheart (Good Enough to Eat)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 Kink Bingo amnesty round. Kink: Guro
> 
> Songs quoted are “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” by Ohio Express and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.

Gloves on the table. Can't color right with gloves on. It's okay. The door is locked, and Engie knows about taking your hands off and putting them back on again.

Engie's workshop is the very best place to draw. It's warm and bright inside. Smells good too, like soldering fumes. There's a brand new box of crayons, the kind with 64 different colors and a razor blade built in as a prize. 

Red is the best crayon, even out of all the colors in the big box. Red always goes away first, worn down to a blunt stump, so it's important to use it quickly. Here is one friend and then another, smiling on the scrap paper. Red shirts, red gloves, red armbands. The red stripes on Scout's socks wander away across the page.

Oh well. The lines go on, twirling into candy corkscrews. Red Vines. They used to be raspberry, once upon a time, but now they're only red-flavored. That seems right. Scout is long and red and bendy and chewy-soft. He would leave gummy sugar dye all over your mouth if you ate him.

New crayon. If Scout is a Red Vine, then Spy is black licorice. Tougher and not as sweet. An acquired taste. Scout and Spy are made from the same ingredients, even if Scout pretends they're not. New crayon. Colors fly across the paper as inspiration takes hold. Purple spiral. Sniper is an all-day lollipop, soggy stick and all. Soldier is pink popping bubble gum, and Demo is sea-green saltwater taffy. New crayon. Heavy is a brick of peanut brittle, the kind you could break a tooth on. New crayon. Lemon drop yellow for Medic, sugar-dusted and mouth-puckering sour. New crayon.

And Engie—

Engie is sitting across the table, writing down little numbers and drawing straight lines with a sharp, shiny ruler. Gray pencil on white paper. 

That's sad. It calls for nudging over the box of crayons.

"Want to share?"

Engie looks up. There's another line, on his forehead. Right above his goggles.

"That's all right," he says. "You keep 'em."

But he smiles. It's a really nice smile.

Everything turns into rainbows and the taste of throwing up cotton candy on the tilt-a-whirl. 

Electric guitar. Drums. 

_Yummy, yummy, yummy_

_I got love in my tummy_

_and I feel like a-lovin' you_

Engie isn't just gumdrops or jelly beans. You couldn't buy Engie for a penny at the corner store. Engie is nothing short of a toasted marshmallow. 

There is nothing better in the whole wide world than toasted marshmallows. They mean fire and friends both in the same place. Being outside at night. Stars and smoke. Engie sitting on his tool box strumming cowboy songs and Sniper singing along when he's been drinking the stuff that smells like apples and gasoline.

_Love_

_is a burning thing_

'Might want to try just holding them close to the fire,' Engie suggested, but marshmallows only taste good when they're burnt.

You have to put them all the way into the flames. Let them catch. Watch them flare up at the end of the stick like shooting stars. Golden-brown at first, then black and bubbling. Whoosh—blow them out. 

They crackle on the tongue. The charred sugar fuses to the inside of the mouth and then melts away. Insides ooze out.

The crayons rattle in the box under another examination. There should be a color for your heart feeling too big for your chest. Too much blood and not enough room to pump it. Meat pushing against bone. Another color for getting the tingles and squirming in your seat with the urge to give someone a hug. Wanting to squeeze Engie around the middle where he's marshmallow-soft under his overalls.

That's where all his sweetness has to be. The rest of him is muscle and metal. Hard things can’t make a smile like that. They can’t. Engie's voice comes up from some warm, sugary place, slow as syrup. 'Buddy,' he says, and 'partner,' and one time it was even 'darling,' the time at the barbecue when everyone else was screaming.

_‘Come on, darlin'. Put down the axe, now. It's time to go home.’_

There should be a color for when your heart turns into the drumbeat of a rock and roll song and your mouth goes all wet at the thought of making someone crispy on the outside and melted on the inside. Whoosh. Blowing softly. Clothes. Skin. Gone. Crumbling into ashes. Nothing left in the way.

Yes. 

A big pillowy mound of puffed sugar underneath. Fluffy white wonderful stuff giving way at the slightest touch. Hot and sticky against the fingers and all over the tongue. Gulped down until it's inside both of them. The smell of burning and the taste of ooey gooey goodness. Enough molten sweetness inside to drown in.

Yes. Yes, please.

"You all right there, buddy?" 

Engie is looking at the red and black crayons, which are clutched in one sweaty hand. Back and forth they go, back and forth across the page, slowly obliterating the candy friends. Engie is looking at the lighter in the other hand. At the thumb flicking the flint wheel over and over.

"Mm-hm."

Engie tilts his head, examining what remains of the drawing. A lemon drop doctor and a lollipop holding a rifle. He chuckles.

"Getting hungry?"

"Uh-huh."

Just like magic, a candy bar appears from the bib pocket of Engie's overalls. Milky Way. That's a good one. Caramel and nougat. Engie unwraps it and lines it up against his shiny sharp ruler before slicing it in two with his utility knife.

"Here, I'll trade you," Engie says, taking the lighter and replacing it with exactly half of the candy bar.

It's okay. He always gives it back. 

Their hands touch. Naked. Just for a second. Mouth open. Nozzle open. All of it in at once. Engie takes a big bite from his half and goes back to drawing straight, sure lines. New crayon. White. Dragging streaks of red and black wax. A squishy heart takes shape on top of the fiery scribbles.

Chocolate isn't quite as good as toasted marshmallows, but everything tastes better when you're smiling so wide it hurts.


End file.
